Hilary Duff confirmed that at least some of the music on her upcoming album is about her family after fans speculated that one song in particular is about her sister, Haylie Duff.
Hilary, 38, opened up about her new album, Luck … Or Something, in a cover interview with Glamour published Tuesday, February 17. The Younger alum explained that she chose to write about her family at this point in her career because she felt it was important to be as real as possible in her music.
“That’s my family. Those are the people that affect you the most, take up the most space naturally as a human who’s born into something,” she explained. “Just because you’re born into a family doesn’t mean that it always stays together. You can only control your side and your street.”
Seemingly addressing “The Optimist,” a song that mentions her dad, Hilary added, “I’ve had a very complicated life, and my parents had a very complicated thing. I know it’s not rare, and I think it goes back to the theme of, ‘Why share now?’ I guess I just felt ready.”
Hilary Duff Appears to Address Sister Haylie on New Song ‘We Don’t Talk’
Hilary’s comments come after fans speculated that one of her new songs, “We Don’t Talk,” is about her rumored estrangement from Haylie, 40. She performed the track last month during her Small Rooms, Big Nerves tour ahead of the release of Luck … Or Something, which drops Friday, February 20.
“Don’t know when it happened / Not even sure what it was about,” Hilary sings on “We Don’t Talk,” alluding to a fractured relationship. “’Cause we come from the same home, same blood.”
Before the chorus, she sings: “People ask me how you’re doing / I wanna say amazing, but the truth is that I don’t know / What I always end up saying is how … ”
She then begins the chorus, where she repeats the lines, “We don’t talk, we don’t talk about it / We don’t talk about anything anymore.”
During the second verse, Hilary hints at a rivalry between her and the subject of the track, singing, “And if it’s ’cause you’re jealous / God knows I would sell it all, then break you off the bigger half.”
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Later, Hilary sings, “Let’s have it out / I’ll hear you out, you’ll hear me out on the couch / Get back to how we were as kids / Let’s break it down / So sick of being so sad about / How we don’t talk and you won’t talk about it.”
Hilary hasn’t directly addressed what or who the song is about, but fans immediately theorized that the lyrics are about her sister, with whom Hilary hasn’t been pictured publicly since 2019.
“WOWW… Hilary Duff just sung We don’t talk and it’s 100% about Hailey. 👀 but not mean at all. Basically telling her to reach out,” one person wrote via X last month.
Another new song, “Mature,” is seemingly about a past relationship with an older man, which Hilary confirmed in her Glamour interview. She noted, however, that fans might not be right about who they think the song is about.
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“It’s definitely about a relationship that I had. It was very brief with someone older than me, and that was not illegal, but inappropriate when you have this much time removed from it,” she explained. “Everybody speculates, but I’m not sure they got it right. … I think that it’s super nuanced and it’s hard to defend certain things that have happened in my life. But the one thing that I’ll say is, working as an adult since I was 10 years old, it’s very hard to have relationships with people your own age.”
Hilary, who has been married to Matthew Koma since 2019, previously dated Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden from 2004 to 2006. When their relationship began, she was 16 and he was 25.
Hilary further clarified to Glamour that she doesn’t plan to reveal what or who “Mature” is about, saying, “If I wanted to say who, I would.”
Madden, for his part, showed his support for the track after its November 2025 release by resharing wife Nicole Richie’s Instagram post about it.
“‘Mature’ is not the word I would use to describe us,” wrote Richie, 44, tagging Hilary. “But regardless, this song is a BOP.”
